After looking at the banner for weeks, I broke down and spent the 300+ for the tele boot camp. I'm going to chronicle results for anyone who's interested.
On Mort's website advice I got the "lone Ranger Track" Got the box - huge package! Cd's DVD's Books, Big three ring binder. Flipped thru some of the material, watched the DVD. P.S. The lone ranger track appears to be the same as the Duo Track with the same material.
Observations:
1. Make sure you have a fast forward for the DVD. Good stuff on there, but 10+ minutes of 'intro' for Mort. Blah blah blah, he's so great, etc. Skip that. He'd better be great, i just spent 300.00
2. Some different concepts -
A) white flags (made them but haven't used them yet.) BUT, the very act of us making them (we colored ours together with peace symbols) was SOOOO healing for us. Just knowing that they would be there so that our 'heart to hearts' didn't turn into head butting sessions has kept us from even having to use them yet!
We even managed to joke that since we used pencils as the flagpoles we can always sharpen them and use them as spousal skewers :rofl: Yeah, I know we are weird, but it got us laughing and happy again. wow..
Score one for Marriage Fitness (MF)
B) Lone Ranger - The concept that you can change your marriage with just one person participating in the program. How unique. I did notice the book came in hard back for those more than usually stubbon spouses
When I first got it, He gave me one of those rolling eyes 'here we go again' and flat out said he wasn't going into any more of these stupid counseling things. I said "oh don't worry, this one only takes one of us doing it to work".
Well. That drove him NUTS. He kept peeking at it on the bookshelf wondering what super secret stuff I was learning that was going to make a difference even if he didn't work on it too. I just stayed happy and would occasionally say things like 'wow' and laugh at some of the things I saw in it. He would come and try to peer over my shoulder at it, I would close the book playfully and say to him 'yes? can i help you?' he would then hrumph and say never mind and walk off.
I spent Feb (see post) on working on being the nice, sweet me. I got minimal results. Or so I thought. After Feb was over, and I was no longer putting love notes into his wallet every morning, he has started to call me on his lunch hour just to say hi. wow.
Plus he said how much he liked playing games with me.
Score Two for MF.
He has started to cuddle me in his sleep. So what? try not touching in bed for nine months and you will see what a big deal this is!
C) Sneaky Lone Ranger to Duo Track -
Hubby is Notorious (and should be shot) for never knowing (or saying) what he wants to do with our personal time. We end up sounding like Chip and Dale most evenings "whatever you want, oh no whatever you want" etc. So last night when he started with the 'whatever you want' I decided to call his bluff. I know he wanted to watch a movie. I wanted actual time doing things together. Sex would have been ideal. Or playing a game. Or making love. Or snuggling. Or talking. Or sex. hehe.
So, I said:
How about going over some of this Marriage Fitness stuff? Deer in the headlights look from him. NOOOOOOO! heh.
But due to the unspoken rules of his game, the person that finally says what they want is not to be refused. So he says *gulp* ok. What's it about? Do I have to do anything? Is this going to take long?
Nah, only as long as you want. Bring the flags and we can play dodge flag if it gets too boring. (Oh! chance for spousal dodge ball? Possible pain and danger? what male can refuse that?) So he agrees, bringing his flag and making 300 Sparta sounds on the way to the bed. (men, gotta love em)
We sit on the bed and go over some stuff. Only did part of the first chapter. It was basically on why did we fall in love with each other and on our past relationships. What interesting questions tho! We were able to answer all the questions and low and behold, it spawed us actually talking about ourselves, our past history.
I learned more about HOW he works and THINKS last night from his stories of his past relationships than I have in the ENTIRE time i've known him! And to think we talked ALL the time (4 hours a day or more) when we were dating and never learned this stuff about each other. How very interesting.
The conversation stayed light and fun and informative. He was empathetic towards me for the first time in months and we were both wow'd at what we learned.
Yes, we atually TALKED. We would naturally start talking about the next concept before we turned the page and saw that we had just answed the next questions. Then we snuggled and held each other.
Now as you know, I was interested in sex, he wasn't. (well wasn't willing to admit it anyway) this gave me a WONDERFUL chance to practice Mark's concepts. Guys, just an FYI, I'd bet the same things would work on reluctant females.
He asked me to tickle his back, I said sure. But this time, I also tickled his butt, legs, inside of his thighs, his scrotum between his legs etc. Well, he would NEVER admit it was turning him on. He was laying on his stomach. But I'm very good at reading signs. Breathing, goosebumps, etc. I know he was aroused. Good. Lets keep doing this for a few nights and see how he does with the 'oh i don't need sex concept'.
I never mentioned anything about sex, just kept stroking and licking and nibbling and tickling his back as he seemed ready for it, but never said anything or did anything else too overt.
I would go just to the level of him almost groaning then back off. I didn't want him to totally lose control, just get to the verge of it. If he wanted to pretend he wasn't aroused, well ok, I'll give him that safety net.
After that he rolled over to read and I lay on my back to read and finish our dessert of fresh blackberries and homemade whip cream. Well, I'm a girl who is very oral and loves her whip cream, so I was making some very quiet noises, rather unmistakeable for arousal.
Finally he FLIPPED over in one leap and said "ah ha!" he thought he had caught me masterbating. I just smiled at him in an innocent way and kept eating the raspberry. Yes dear?
He looked a little unsure and said, oh.. i didn't know who was there. I thought you had gotten out of bed a while ago. (now hands up anybody that buys that story) but I said, nope... just me. Want some?
He said, um... uh... no, i'm tired. and rolled back over. But he was quite uncomfortable laying on his stomach after that
This morning he gave me a big hug as he was leaving for work and i was dressed only in a thin blanket and played with my boobs for a bit. (guys, please come up with different foreplay!)
So far so good....
Score Three for MF
3. The tele-conferences.
Um. I hate to say this, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother right now. They are just pre-recorded sessions you can listen to any time if you miss the 'call in' time, which just happens to be in the middle of his and my personal time in the evenings.
Basically a monologue on his concepts. I didn't even get thru the first one when I decided that perhaps time spent actually WITH my hubby was better than listening to the monologue.
If there were an actual Q and A session where I got to hear other people asking questions or some kind of interaction I might have been more interested. This stuff I can download from the internet.
MF - minus one for boring monologues. (back to 2)
Concepts I'm keeping - Absolute Time together in the evenings. I schedule 1.5 hours M-F and 10 hours on the weekends. We usually miss the UA time on the weekends, but do things 'near' each other. However, the weekday times are for and about US.
That was really difficult with six kids, businesses etc. We did it anyway and it's really helping. It was a carry over from a Marriage builder 15 hour a week thing, but I see Mort has the same idea.
I liked being able to use the words and concepts I found in the MF video to explain to Hubby that watching movies doesn't COUNT as personal time. Why? Because personal time cannot be time spent looking in the same direction! you must be doing something wherein you are looking at each other. He finally got it. Movies, driving, sports events, etc.. you are looking in the same direction. Talking, games, sex etc you are looking AT each other.
Score one for MF for being able to explain what UA time is in Man Speak!
Total: MF 3 :smthumbup:
I have gone from feeling totally impossible about this relationship, to having hope for the first time.
Should I keep this thread going? anybody interested in it?
On Mort's website advice I got the "lone Ranger Track" Got the box - huge package! Cd's DVD's Books, Big three ring binder. Flipped thru some of the material, watched the DVD. P.S. The lone ranger track appears to be the same as the Duo Track with the same material.
Observations:
1. Make sure you have a fast forward for the DVD. Good stuff on there, but 10+ minutes of 'intro' for Mort. Blah blah blah, he's so great, etc. Skip that. He'd better be great, i just spent 300.00
2. Some different concepts -
A) white flags (made them but haven't used them yet.) BUT, the very act of us making them (we colored ours together with peace symbols) was SOOOO healing for us. Just knowing that they would be there so that our 'heart to hearts' didn't turn into head butting sessions has kept us from even having to use them yet!
We even managed to joke that since we used pencils as the flagpoles we can always sharpen them and use them as spousal skewers :rofl: Yeah, I know we are weird, but it got us laughing and happy again. wow..
Score one for Marriage Fitness (MF)
B) Lone Ranger - The concept that you can change your marriage with just one person participating in the program. How unique. I did notice the book came in hard back for those more than usually stubbon spouses
When I first got it, He gave me one of those rolling eyes 'here we go again' and flat out said he wasn't going into any more of these stupid counseling things. I said "oh don't worry, this one only takes one of us doing it to work".
Well. That drove him NUTS. He kept peeking at it on the bookshelf wondering what super secret stuff I was learning that was going to make a difference even if he didn't work on it too. I just stayed happy and would occasionally say things like 'wow' and laugh at some of the things I saw in it. He would come and try to peer over my shoulder at it, I would close the book playfully and say to him 'yes? can i help you?' he would then hrumph and say never mind and walk off.
I spent Feb (see post) on working on being the nice, sweet me. I got minimal results. Or so I thought. After Feb was over, and I was no longer putting love notes into his wallet every morning, he has started to call me on his lunch hour just to say hi. wow.
Plus he said how much he liked playing games with me.
Score Two for MF.
He has started to cuddle me in his sleep. So what? try not touching in bed for nine months and you will see what a big deal this is!
C) Sneaky Lone Ranger to Duo Track -
Hubby is Notorious (and should be shot) for never knowing (or saying) what he wants to do with our personal time. We end up sounding like Chip and Dale most evenings "whatever you want, oh no whatever you want" etc. So last night when he started with the 'whatever you want' I decided to call his bluff. I know he wanted to watch a movie. I wanted actual time doing things together. Sex would have been ideal. Or playing a game. Or making love. Or snuggling. Or talking. Or sex. hehe.
So, I said:
How about going over some of this Marriage Fitness stuff? Deer in the headlights look from him. NOOOOOOO! heh.
But due to the unspoken rules of his game, the person that finally says what they want is not to be refused. So he says *gulp* ok. What's it about? Do I have to do anything? Is this going to take long?
Nah, only as long as you want. Bring the flags and we can play dodge flag if it gets too boring. (Oh! chance for spousal dodge ball? Possible pain and danger? what male can refuse that?) So he agrees, bringing his flag and making 300 Sparta sounds on the way to the bed. (men, gotta love em)
We sit on the bed and go over some stuff. Only did part of the first chapter. It was basically on why did we fall in love with each other and on our past relationships. What interesting questions tho! We were able to answer all the questions and low and behold, it spawed us actually talking about ourselves, our past history.
I learned more about HOW he works and THINKS last night from his stories of his past relationships than I have in the ENTIRE time i've known him! And to think we talked ALL the time (4 hours a day or more) when we were dating and never learned this stuff about each other. How very interesting.
The conversation stayed light and fun and informative. He was empathetic towards me for the first time in months and we were both wow'd at what we learned.
Yes, we atually TALKED. We would naturally start talking about the next concept before we turned the page and saw that we had just answed the next questions. Then we snuggled and held each other.
Now as you know, I was interested in sex, he wasn't. (well wasn't willing to admit it anyway) this gave me a WONDERFUL chance to practice Mark's concepts. Guys, just an FYI, I'd bet the same things would work on reluctant females.
He asked me to tickle his back, I said sure. But this time, I also tickled his butt, legs, inside of his thighs, his scrotum between his legs etc. Well, he would NEVER admit it was turning him on. He was laying on his stomach. But I'm very good at reading signs. Breathing, goosebumps, etc. I know he was aroused. Good. Lets keep doing this for a few nights and see how he does with the 'oh i don't need sex concept'.
I never mentioned anything about sex, just kept stroking and licking and nibbling and tickling his back as he seemed ready for it, but never said anything or did anything else too overt.
I would go just to the level of him almost groaning then back off. I didn't want him to totally lose control, just get to the verge of it. If he wanted to pretend he wasn't aroused, well ok, I'll give him that safety net.
After that he rolled over to read and I lay on my back to read and finish our dessert of fresh blackberries and homemade whip cream. Well, I'm a girl who is very oral and loves her whip cream, so I was making some very quiet noises, rather unmistakeable for arousal.
Finally he FLIPPED over in one leap and said "ah ha!" he thought he had caught me masterbating. I just smiled at him in an innocent way and kept eating the raspberry. Yes dear?
He looked a little unsure and said, oh.. i didn't know who was there. I thought you had gotten out of bed a while ago. (now hands up anybody that buys that story) but I said, nope... just me. Want some?
He said, um... uh... no, i'm tired. and rolled back over. But he was quite uncomfortable laying on his stomach after that
This morning he gave me a big hug as he was leaving for work and i was dressed only in a thin blanket and played with my boobs for a bit. (guys, please come up with different foreplay!)
So far so good....
Score Three for MF
3. The tele-conferences.
Um. I hate to say this, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother right now. They are just pre-recorded sessions you can listen to any time if you miss the 'call in' time, which just happens to be in the middle of his and my personal time in the evenings.
Basically a monologue on his concepts. I didn't even get thru the first one when I decided that perhaps time spent actually WITH my hubby was better than listening to the monologue.
If there were an actual Q and A session where I got to hear other people asking questions or some kind of interaction I might have been more interested. This stuff I can download from the internet.
MF - minus one for boring monologues. (back to 2)
Concepts I'm keeping - Absolute Time together in the evenings. I schedule 1.5 hours M-F and 10 hours on the weekends. We usually miss the UA time on the weekends, but do things 'near' each other. However, the weekday times are for and about US.
That was really difficult with six kids, businesses etc. We did it anyway and it's really helping. It was a carry over from a Marriage builder 15 hour a week thing, but I see Mort has the same idea.
I liked being able to use the words and concepts I found in the MF video to explain to Hubby that watching movies doesn't COUNT as personal time. Why? Because personal time cannot be time spent looking in the same direction! you must be doing something wherein you are looking at each other. He finally got it. Movies, driving, sports events, etc.. you are looking in the same direction. Talking, games, sex etc you are looking AT each other.
Score one for MF for being able to explain what UA time is in Man Speak!
Total: MF 3 :smthumbup:
I have gone from feeling totally impossible about this relationship, to having hope for the first time.
Should I keep this thread going? anybody interested in it?